No Chaser - Blue (Blue)

Eighteen months on from the runaway success of The Only Place I Know - the debut that crashed in at #1 on the ARIA charts and #2 on the ARIA Vinyl Chart - Lake Macquarie's Surf Trash are back, and they're not watering it down. Their sophomore album No Chaser lands neat, on the rocks, no apologies: ten tracks of melodic surf-pop-punk hammered out by a band that has clearly spent the last year sharpening every edge. It's a record you can hear the kilometers in. Between The Only Place I Know and now, Andrew Scott, Lachlan Jackson, Patrick Russell and Nick Scott have torn through a sold-out national run, crisscrossed the UK and Europe, and made a habit of leaving rooms louder than they found them. No Chaser carries the dust from all of it - bigger choruses, leaner production, a touch more bruise underneath the gloss. There's still that windows-down, salt-on-the-windscreen feel that made the debut impossible to ignore, but it's wired into songs that swing harder and cut deeper. Less wistful afternoon, more last-light drive home with the volume creeping up. The four-piece make melodic surf-pop-punk that sounds great turned up loud - driving in your mate's car on the way back to the beach. Their debut, The Fire Note wrote, "delivers a dynamic debut... blending raw energy, introspective depth, and timeless indie rock flair." Manchester World called their first show on UK soil "epic... high energy and great song after great song," and the live reputation has only grown since: a band that's earned every inch of the ceiling it now hits. No Chaser is the sound of them no longer waiting for permission. Singalong harmonies, fast tempo changes, good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll with a sense of urgency.